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Got an Hour? Watch This Valentino Rossi Movie Series

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Monster Energy’s five-part video series on Valentino Rossi has finally come to its conclusion, and for fans of The Doctor, it is roughly an hour of video that hammers home the continued idolization of the Grand Prix motorcycle racer that many refer to as The G.O.A.T. or Greatest Of All Time.

Episode One gives us the genesis story of Valentino Rossi as a motorcycle racer, and as a popular figure. The episode, along with the series as a whole, relies on Rossi’s inner circle to tell most of the Italian’s story, and the episode sets the stage for things to come.

Mugello is the epicenter of the second episode, as it sets the tone for the motorcycle racing culture in Italy, and the iconic race track has been home to a number of Rossi’s post-race antics and famous one-off helmet designs.

The third episode focuses on The Ranch, Valentino Rossi’s flat track course and training facility in Tavullia, Italy. The dream of any rider, you can tell that Rossi is proud of his creation, and what it affords him to do with honing his tradecraft, as well as hanging out with his friends.

Episode Four basks in the yellow glory that is Valentino Rossi. This episode is the neon wet dream of all hardcore Valentino Rossi fans, as it shows not only Rossi’s impressive racing career, but also sets a narrative for how Valentino has shaped the MotoGP Championship.

The final installment is the moneymaker, with obvious nods and plugs for Valentino Rossi’s various business enterprises, sponsors, and partnerships.

In a less schwarmy way though, the fifth episode also takes a look at the VR46 Academy, which is developing the talent of young Italian racers. This is critical element not only to Valentino Rossi’s legacy, but the continued Italian powerhouse in motorcycle racing.

Love him or hate him, you cannot deny the racing talent and business juggernaut that Valentino Rossi has become. Any true MotoGP racing fan owes it to themselves to spend some time watching these videos, even if they make you curiously thirst for a Monster Energy drink.

We have all five of them waiting for you, after the jump.

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MotoGP

Preview of the Dutch TT: Weird Weather, Tricky Tires, and Saving Italian Racing

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So how does the first Dutch TT at Assen to be run following the normal Friday-to-Sunday schedule feel for the riders? It feels normal, is the consensus.

“I don’t think it makes a difference regarding the feeling,” Dani Pedrosa explained on Thursday. “Because when we were here on Wednesday, it felt like a Thursday, because the procedure is the same.”

The only downside about the switch from Saturday to Sunday? “The only good thing before was that when you finish the race, you still have the Sunday off! So when you return home, you had a good time with family on Sunday,” said Pedrosa. “I’m going to miss my Sunday roast!” added Bradley Smith.

Perhaps a more complex and sensitive loss was the fact that the Assen round of MotoGP now clashes directly with the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Bradley Smith bemoaned the fact that he would not be able to attend the festivities on Sunday, nor the traditional dinner on Saturday night.

The damage this clash does could be small but significant in the long run. Though motorcycles are given a lot of attention at Goodwood, it is primarily an event focused on four wheels.

Having top MotoGP riders attend the event was good exposure for motorcycle racing, and MotoGP in particular. With Assen likely to clash frequently with Goodwood, the number of riders at the event is certain to diminish.

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MotoGP

Sunday MotoGP Summary at Mugello: Of Engines, Disappointment, & Blistering Battles

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The 2016 Italian Grand Prix at Mugello was many things, but above all, it was memorable.

It’s not just that the three races ended up with incredibly close finishes – the margin of victory in Moto3 was just 0.038, and that was the largest winning margin of the three races – but how they were won, and what happened along the way that will leave them indelibly imprinted on the memories of race fans.

There was drama, a bucketful of heartbreak, and plenty of chaos and confusion thrown into the mix. If there was a script for Sunday, it was torn up and rewritten a dozen times or more before the day was over.

The drama started during morning warm-up. As the final seconds of the MotoGP session ticked away, Jorge Lorenzo suddenly pulled over and white smoke started pouring out of the exhaust of his Movistar Yamaha. His engine had suffered a catastrophic failure.

This was a worry, as it was a relatively new engine, first introduced at Jerez, with twelve sessions of practice and two races on it. The other two engines Lorenzo had already used had 21 and 23 sessions of practice on them, and had also been used for two races each (including the flag-to-flag race at Argentina).

Though the engine allocation has been increased from five to seven engines for 2016, losing engine #3 at just the sixth race of the season could end up cutting things rather fine by the time we reach Valencia.

Losing an engine so soon before a race seemed like a stroke of incredibly bad luck for Lorenzo. In fact, it would prove to be exactly the opposite.

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MotoGP

Saturday MotoGP Summary at Mugello: Of Improbably Alliances, & Saving Italian Racing

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Every year at Mugello, Valentino Rossi and Italian designer Aldo Drudi come up with a special helmet design for Rossi’s helmet.

They vary in originality and ingenuity: my own personal favorite by far was the helmet from 2008, which featured Rossi’s face on the top, wide-eyed with the terror he felt braking for the first corner at San Donato, one of the highest speed approaches on the calendar.

Others have varied from the obscure and personal, to the entertaining or passionate. Most people have their own personal favorite, a few curmudgeons find the whole idea rather pointless.

Rossi’s helmet for this year, features a simple design, based on a pun in Italian. His AGV Pista GP helmet is yellow, featuring an outline of the Mugello circuit, and the word “MUGIALLO” around the front.

“Mugiallo” is a play on the words Mugello, the name of the circuit, and “giallo”, the Italian word for yellow. Rossi’s tribal color is yellow, his fans call themselves “Il popolo giallo”, or The Yellow People. The press release from Dainese described it as a tribute to the circuit, and to Rossi’s fans.

Is that what it means to Rossi himself, though? On Saturday, Rossi made his helmet look more like an act of appropriation than a tribute. Rossi’s searing qualifying lap laid bare his intentions: Valentino Rossi laid claim to the Mugello circuit. He came here to win.

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Racing

Valentino Rossi Starts the VR|46 Riders Academy

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Creating an effective system to cultivate and train young riders is the single largest reason that today we see Spanish riders dominating Grand Prix racing. A system built in large part by the Godfather of Roadracing, Kenny Roberts Sr. himself, Spanish riders have enjoyed a federation that supports young riders and paces them throughout their career. The process has been so effective that the Italians have recently set to copying it, with their star pupil being Moto3’s Romano Fenati. For the 2014 season, Fenati will be aboard the SKY Racing Team by VR|46, so it should come as little surprise that the personal brand of Valentino Rossi is lending its weight further to finding the next G.O.A.T. As such, the VR|46 Riders Academy has been established by Rossi and a crew of top-level instructors.

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